Unlocking opportunities for Sustainable Agriculture in

Afghanistan Assistance for legal and peace-oriented development

Which are the main problems for the Afghan agriculture development?

Drastic conditions for the rural communities and, worst of all, the poppy cultivation.

To understand the problem, let’s start with a brief historical summary.

Afghanistan was invaded by the Soviet Union in 1979 and then left on its own after the withdrawal. The

socialist government was overcome by the Taliban, who annihilated all the democratic institutions.

At the beginning of the new century, Afghanistan has become what the International Community call a

“terrorism sponsor State”.

US and NATO started a campaign in 2001 that is still present in 2017, after having modified its shape

several times to become a campaign for the assistance of country’s national forces with many civil

projects.

Unfortunately, Taliban during years have reached the goal of continuously putting the Country into instability. How? Starting in the rural areas a massive poppy cultivation, opium, for the production of heroin.

In this way, they have huge resources for the continuation of the war, keeping the rural communities under a constant threat and trying to corrupt the regional authorities.

Poppy cultivation is very difficult to reconvert and very often the Afghans don’t have the capabilities, both technically and financially speaking.

A reconversion of this kind of cultivation would bring enormous beneficial effects, moving from the concept of resilience.

Resilience means making robust choices for the future, adapting to the adversities of the present.

Thus, helping the rural areas to exit from this illegal logic imposed by Taliban could open to a series of improvements: food security, better nutrition; safer access to the market, international success in the peace process between Afghan Government and Taliban and Mujaheddin.

Both Former President Hamid Karzai and actual President Ashraf Ghazi hope in establishing a peace process with Taliban, after the death of Mullah Omar. As in Colombia, the peace process is the only way to reintegrate the people in the legal society.

A victory over the illegal market of heroin and poppy cultivation could leave Taliban without one of their biggest financial entrance, persuading to the necessity of stopping the fightings and gain their respectful part in the Country.

The problem is huge and years of operations couldn’t reach completely the goal.

What solutions?

Cooperation. In all its form, cooperation is what Afghanistan needs to overcome the problems.

International Organizations, Multilateral Development Banks, Private Sector and Philanthropy

are the key ingredients to a successful investment.

In the details: a project of micro-finance and technical assistance from all the major Institutions of these fields. Technical and Financial Assistance can’t work successfully if not together.

Monitored Financial Assistance to rural communities in a bottom-up development plus technical assistance for the reconversion to a sustainable agriculture.

Now in practical terms.

Afghanistan, because of more than 15 years of international operations on its territory, has

already a long history of cooperation with Financial Institutions as World Bank, IDA and Asian

Development Bank. The challenge is to bring together all the possible actors, starting from Public

Sector and then moving to Private Partnerships and Philanthropic Foundations.

Which the reasons to participate and which the obstacles?

Working on resilience is the better way to win over different types of vulnerabilities. Creating a

legal and successful environment for agriculture will enable a lot of people to make better choices,

strengthening the peace process and meet with at least 5 Sustainable Development Goals and

many other specific targets: End Poverty, Zero Hunger, Responsible Consumption and

Production, Life on Land and Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions.

The main obstacle: difficulty of reconversion to sustainable agriculture, together with the delicacy

of cooperating among many different actors, as Afghan National Forces for Defense, to work in

safe conditions.

How the solution could overcome the obstacles?

A comprehensive approach is the most important ingredient for the success of the challenge. This

means cooperation between different actors that work side by side in the same territory, just with

different tools that have to go together. Technical assistance and Financial Assistance, programs

with different targets but with the same goals, different facilities to bring in investments and risk

tolerant resources to unlock new solutions.

Let’s talk about the tools.

Afghanistan already work in cooperation with the World Bank Group. The International

Development Assistance could create the main fund, a together with risk mitigation facility, and

bring in MIGA and IFC, opening the Private Sector Window in a Public-Private Partnership (PPP).

This has already happened in the past, but this time, these Institutions could work together with

the Asian Development Bank, that is the administrator of one important thing: local resources, in

the form of Afghan Trust Fund.

Philanthropy: the game-changer.

The Bill Gates Foundations has provided expertise in the field of agriculture development in Bangladesh and Africa and could bring technical assistance and, mostly, unlocking new private investments thanks to the risk tolerant resources. One of the Foundation’s project indeed was devoted to support to farmers in a “Nutrition Food System Initiative”.

And finally, the great tech-financial actors able to bring together all the expertise and the resources: the International Organizations and Programmes in the UN System.

FAO, IFAD, WFP, UNEP.

FAO has a long history of collaboration with the World Bank for several projects in which mixing technical and financial sides and it is the most important Institution worldwide to deal with, speaking about food security and agriculture expertise, as in its “Technical Cooperation Program” or the “Global Agriculture and Food Security Program”.

IFAD is the Fund for Agriculture Development and during last year it has delivered its Strategical Framework 2016-2025 “Enable Inclusive and Sustainable Rural Transformations”, the exact words needed for the Afghanistan Solution.

World Food Program is the platform to move the challenge a bit forward and meet new opportunities for comprehensive approach victory. WFP has a specific project for children education about food and agriculture and in last years it has developed the P4P: the “Purchase for Progress” initiative to helping farmers in entering in food markets.

UNEP, the United Nation Environment Programme, is one the main leader in the Sustainable and Environment Cooperation and could provide added instruments as the “Global Environment Facility” (GEF) for a specific assistance, with trust funds and voluntary contributions, unlocking the climate finance typology of resource.

All the possible actors, from the World Bank Group to the Multilateral Development Bank as the initial stones to build on the partnerships.

Then Private Sector and Philanthropy. All of them in cooperation with the technical assistance of the UN Organizations and their facilities.

A bold initiative to encounter the SDGs and meet with several goals of the Agenda 2030.

The opportunity to work together and obtain true sustainable development.

Afghanistan has one of the youngest population in the world. It’s the time to enable them to count on sustainable development.